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February 17th, 2009
 | 12:39 pm - hopscotch
The leftover-from-Bush-era-no-matter-what-the-Post-says Justice Department is defending Bush's liberalization of law that allows concealed firearms in national parks. Mind you, I have no problem with unconcealed firearms in western National Parks, where shooting off a gun if you are injured may be the fastest way to help someone find you, since cell phones don't generally work in places like Big Bend and the Grand Canyon and some of the other enormous tracts of land. I'm just not fond of concealed firearms; I tend not to like nasty surprises.
Senate Democrats are checking the ethics of legal opinions in the Bush era that okayed waterboarding prisoners. And a line in an internal Justice Department memo is connecting Bush's support for waterboarding with political influence. USAToday finds that a majority of people (roughly 2/3 of those surveyed) want a criminal investigation or an independent panel to investigate the Bush Administration's torture tactics.
Does anyone but me remember that old ShakeNBake commercial with the little girl who said, "and I halped" ? Well, in the case of the Maryland State Police spying on peacemongering antiwar Maryland citizens innocent of any crime, the Pentagon 'halped'. It should be noted that the spying was inept enough that the cops did not realize at times that they were spying on DC residents (in Takoma Park, one of the roads is the boundary line for the District, and they were on the wrong side of it) and therefore operating outside their jurisdiction.
The Army wants more immigrants. I am very wary of this. It works against people who believe in peacemaking more than in the military, and is a throwback of sorts to the Civil War, in which Northerners hired poor immigrant Irish to fight in their place.
The Pentagon is rethinking its ban on photos of coffins of military personnel killed in war.
Blackwater is being banned by Iraq. So they changed their name to Xe.
Federal authorities are investigating graft in the actions of US officers in Iraq.
If you want a prosecution commision to investigate Bush and Cheney, you may want to look at this link.
Poverty in Upstate New York. You may be surprised; I am not. This is where I grew up, went to university and lived for many years. ( what you didn't know about my home state )
Some journalists are trying to be creative in their newsgathering and publishing. Well, God knows we could *use* some straight talk about the Fairness Doctrine, but I'm not seeing a lot of it here. Still, it could come back, requiring broadcasters to air both sides of every issue -- and wouldn't that have been worth the price of admission for the last eight years, to see FauxNews actually having to air competing opinions? Meanwhile, there's no progressive radio within Washington DC, and we have one newspaper whose formerly excellent non-ideological reporting has slid inexorably to the right (Katherine Graham is rotating in her grave at a high speed, I have no doubt) and one that is owned and operated by a far-right-wing Korean ideologue who acts as the mouthpiece for the radical Republicans even in its news coverage.
Which means that the ultra-radical Republicans now in Congress won't be seen in a neutral light.
What does it really mean when the Saudi king appoints a woman to a high government position?
Forgotten books. An online catalog with links to downloads in some cases. Some of the titles are amazing.
I appear to be intermittently offline; if you are not hearing back from me, try again. The Ethernet is working, but nothing is coming in at times.
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InsaneJournal |